Law Commons^™

Keeping Men Men And Women Down: Sex Segregation, Anti-Essentialism, And Masculinity, David S. Cohen

David S Cohen

Current-day sex segregation is one of the central ways that law and society define and construct who is a man and what it means to be a man. When law or society tells people that a place or activity is reserved for men alone, or in the converse, that men are excluded from a particular place or activity, two important messages are sent: one, that there are distinct categories of people based on reproductive anatomy and that these anatomical distinctions are a legitimate way of organizing and sorting people; and two, that people with the reproductive anatomy labeled “male” are …

The Stubborn Persistence Of Sex Segregation, David S. Cohen

David S Cohen

Almost fifty years ago, Congress began protecting against sex discrimination in federal statutory law. Almost forty years ago, the Supreme Court expanded constitutional law to include protection from discrimination based on sex. Since then, guarantees against sex discrimination have proliferated in federal and state law, and societal norms of sex equality have become entrenched. Yet, in 2010, we still live in a society that is highly segregated by sex.

This article is the first part of a multi-part project that will analyze sex segregation as a systemic issue by exploring the contours of modern American sex segregation and what this …